All posts tagged: embryos

Embryos made without sperm or eggs reveal why many pregnancies fail

Embryos made without sperm or eggs reveal why many pregnancies fail

Published by skeptic

Embryo models closely resemble early human embryos SCIEPRO/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY/Alamy Inside a lab in Vienna, cells are dividing to form a hollow sphere. Although the fragile ball has all the characteristics of an early human embryo, it isn’t quite what it seems. It didn’t, in fact, begin with an egg meeting a sperm. Instead, it was created entirely in the lab. The very first days of pregnancy have long been an enigma. Scientists are unable to peer inside the uterus during pregnancy, meaning we know little about why so many fail. This is now beginning to change, thanks to embryo models created from stem cells, which are lifting the lid on one of the great mysteries of human biology. In the five years since early human embryo models known as blastoids were first created in several labs – including the one in Vienna – researchers have dramatically advanced our understanding of the early days of life. This is already leading to improvements for in vitro fertilisation (IVF) and treatments for serious conditions that occur during …

A crisis of conscience spurred this Christian IVF doctor’s career pivot

A crisis of conscience spurred this Christian IVF doctor’s career pivot

Published by Sam Flores

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Dr. John Gordon, a reproductive endocrinologist, has been a man of faith for years. When he began to have doubts, they were not about his God, but his life’s work. He chose to be an infertility specialist to help people. Thirty years later, scientific advancements made that easier than ever but created more ethical dilemmas. As co-director of a fertility clinic in suburban Washington, D.C., Gordon grew troubled over helping create surplus embryos, which would often languish in storage or be discarded. With the expansion of genetic testing, couples could choose the sex of their baby. They could screen out painful or fatal diseases, but also milder impairments like hearing loss. “It’s too morally problematic,” Gordon thought. “I don’t know where you draw the line.” In 2018, his wife pushed him to change how he practiced. They both believed in the sanctity of embryos as part of their Christian faith. But as Allison Gordon looked around the home where they had raised four children, their comfortable life now seemed bought by …

A Startup Says It Grew Human Sperm in a Lab—and Used It to Make Embryos

A Startup Says It Grew Human Sperm in a Lab—and Used It to Make Embryos

Published by skeptic

The goal, he says, is to create thousands of sperm from a standard tissue biopsy. The company has had a high success rate in generating sperm from dozens of tissue samples. Pastuszak says early testing shows the lab-made sperm look “effectively identical” to naturally made sperm. The procedure is not yet ready to be used to start pregnancies, though. Paterna created embryos as an early test to validate that its lab-made sperm was actually viable. The company plans to conduct a larger, more comprehensive study involving men with infertility. Paterna will extract sperm from their ejaculate or testicular tissue and use its method to generate sperm for the men. From there, the company will use both the extracted sperm and lab-made sperm to fertilize eggs in the lab, compare fertilization rates between the two groups, and analyze the resulting embryos for physical and genetic abnormalities. “That will actually tell us a ton regarding the efficacy and safety of the approach. It will tell us if there are any mutations that are created by the in …

The Download: digitizing India, and scoring embryos

The Download: digitizing India, and scoring embryos

Published by skeptic

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. The man who made India digital isn’t done yet Nandan Nilekani can’t stop trying to push India into the future. He started nearly 30 years ago, masterminding an ongoing experiment in technological state capacity that started with Aadhaar—the world’s largest digital identity system.  Using Aadhaar as the bedrock, Nilekani and people working with him went on to build a sprawling collection of free, interoperating online tools that add up to nothing less than a digital infrastructure for society, covering government services, banking, and health care. They offer convenience and access that would be eye-popping in wealthy countries a tenth of India’s size.  At 70 years old, Nilekani should be retired. But he has a few more ideas. Read our profile to learn about what he’s set his sights on next. —Edd Gent Embryo scoring is slowly becoming more mainstream Many Americans agree that it’s acceptable to screen embryos for severe genetic diseases. Far …

Researchers are getting organoids pregnant with human embryos

Researchers are getting organoids pregnant with human embryos

Published by skeptic

Only none of it is happening inside a body. These images were captured in a Beijing laboratory, inside a microfluidic chip, as scientists watched the scene unfold. This transparent microfluidic chip is used to grow an organoid that mimics the lining of a uterus.COURTESY OF THE RESEARCHERS In three papers published this week by Cell Press, scientists are reporting what they call the most accurate efforts yet to mimic the first moments of pregnancy in the lab. They’ve taken human embryos from IVF centers and let these merge with “organoids” made of endometrial cells, which form the lining of the uterus. The reports—two from China and a third involving a collaboration among researchers in the United Kingdom, Spain, and the US—show how scientists are using engineered tissues to better understand early pregnancy and potentially improve IVF outcomes. “You have an embryo and the endometrial organoid together,” says Jun Wu, a biologist at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, in Dallas, who contributed to both Chinese reports. “That’s the overarching message of all three papers.” …